SELF REVEALING IDENTITY

SELF REVEALING IDENTITY

Maybe this is why some people see me as a boy. Seriously! It’s not one or two people who said that I actually am, a boy: many of them said that. That’s why I began to think about it further; ain’t I a woman?

Well, yes, at some points of my life, I wish, I do really wish to be a man, I mean, if I were a boy, there would be a lot of things I could do that I can’t do it now, as a woman. It’s not because that I ain’t grateful for being a woman; I proud to be one, and if there is a next lifetime, I will certainly choose to be one once more time.

Now, let’s go straight to the point. Do I really look like a boy? What makes them think so? Is it me, who makes them think so, because I try to act like a boy, unconsciously? Do I really wish to be a boy (do a part of me wishes that)? I have no clue about that, but I will try to analyze it more ‘theoretically’ about my case.

The first reason is maybe its just human nature that always wanting everything they haven’t got or experienced. Maybe because I am a woman who lives in a sexist or patriarchal society, I wish to be one different self or sex than my current self and soul. Or maybe, as semiotics or Marxist, or psychoanalyst would say: I want something that they called ‘power’ which men or phallic symbol represents. Maybe as a woman, I see myself as powerless being, then I want to deny myself (Freud theory) by copying or act like a man, because somehow, I feel that what they do is a challenge for me: if they can do that, why I can’t? But I don’t know if it is true or not since I am not quite sure with that.

          The second analysis, I will draw it from queer and feminism perspectives (it doesn’t mean that my sexual orientation is the same sex, though. I still get interested in men). As we know that these two theories have the same roots which differentiate between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Sex is the label society puts on us at the second we were born, because of our ‘body’ appearance, whether gender is a performance, a role that we play or construct. In this case, I see myself as a woman, who sometimes plays a role as a man. You got my point? Maybe, my male-role dominated me that much at some occasions so that others see me as a man instead of a woman. Ain’t I still a woman?

If I were a boy, I could make my own freedom of going everywhere at any hours I wanted to. We live in a wrong-way-of-thinking society that puts women as the object (and also the subject at the same time) of crimes. We live in a society that taught that women are defenseless and powerless, so they are the perfect object of crimes. Yet if there are rape cases, women are the one to be blamed. We live in a society who never taught that boys should not be allowed to get out at night, so they wouldn’t be a rapist. That’s why sometimes I act like a boy, so nobody would dare to think that I am defenseless and powerless. I could hit or punch anybody in the face, I speak blatantly, I hang around with my male friends to learn how they think. It is interesting, you know.

This way of thinking led me got into so many new perspectives of lives. I became a feminist. I believe that women and men are different and have different potentials in them: that is why we should be equal, because we all have our own strength and weaknesses. Not equality that up against my religion, but equality on how society sees women as powerful and potential beings that can contribute something to the world, if they are given a chance, so people wouldn’t underestimate women any longer.

I even have a dream that I should be a woman warrior like Alice in Resident Evil, or such. I wanna be a kind of girl that smart, tough, and of course independent. I really love action movies that put women not just as a ‘scenery’ but as the person behind the gun. Was it kind of obsession to be a man? Haha I don’t have any idea about that.

This also what makes me became an anti-mainstream person, I mean, sometimes I have different opinion if it is about metro sexual men or stylish or fashionable men. People always find it weird and they became restless of the appearance of these person. One example is men putting make up or any beauty products on their faces. I don’t think that that’s wrong. What makes beauty products so sexist? It shouldn’t be connected with sex, actually, because it’s about our skin health, who doesn’t want their skin being well-cared for? It’s sad then, that people see men who wearing makeup as gay or queer, and they judged them by saying that, to say that they don’t like them. Well, that’s unfair. For me, men also have to take care of their body (like women do) so that they will perform a good or nice looking every day. It hurts my eyes to see dirty-looked men walking everywhere. Maybe they are afraid of putting that skin care cosmetics because they want to be called macho. Well, what’s macho seriously? I am done with this topic!

I said that it’s self revealing identity, but actually, it is just a little part of my identity (as you know, identity consists of so many aspects of life and it’s just a tiny part of it) of how I see myself as a girl and boy at the same time, and how it contributes to my perspectives towards anything. So, even though I am a woman, I have to think like a man, be tough, and over all, independent, because in this world, you can only count on yourself. I believe that.